Age of the battleship really ended when?

[Ultimo Tiger]

I think people are forgetting the psychological element of Battleships. They embody the heart of a nation. They are floating steel bastions of absolute power. They rain death down on foes many miles away and they won't hear it coming apart from the gun blast. I'd say with modern technology they would make a potent weapon. They'd also make good assault ships as this idea from Steel Navy shows (am I allowed to link to pictures?):

http://steelnavy.com/TinianRWhite.htm
http://steelnavy.com/images/2005August/Tinian62rw85.jpg

Think of the defensive stuff you could add to stop missiles and such with today�s technology.

[Lesforan]

The reciepients of a battleship bombardment will only hear the gun blast if they survive the impact of the first salvo.

In Conway's History of the Ship series, he compares the penetrative powers of a modern antiship missle (presumably like Exocet or Harpoon) to that of a 14" shell. So any ship armored against 14" shellfire should be able to stand up to missles.
It was common practice in battleship construction (with a few treaty battleship exceptions for weight savings) to armor a ship to be proof against guns the same size of its own main batteries.

Sometimes battleship utility has been compromised by their status of "national treasure" too valuable to risk in combat.
The cruiser then becomes more useful: it is the largest surface unit that can be considered "expendable". The cruiser can also serve in more varied roles than the battleship, thus extending its utility.

[Seasick]

Timeline:
The age of the battleship began to end with the introduction of the self propelled torpedo in the 1890s.
The Predreadnought Zenith was Tushima in 1905.
The Dreadnought zenith was the battle of Jutland 1916.
The Decline begins with the Washington Treaty in 1922.
The Decline accelerates as aircraft lift weights increase in the 1930s. Decline not readily apparent.
Decline starts to be ovious. Battle of Taranto 1940. Aircraft attack battleships with aerial torpedos.
Decline becomes clear. Battle of Pearl Harbor 1941. Aircraft attack battleship in protected harbor.
The Battle of the Coral Sea and Battle of Midway 1942. Two major battles where battleships did not make contact.
Guadalcanal battles: battleships still relevent for night gunnery. Day light is dominated by air power.
Battles of Leyte 1944
Battle of Surigao Strait -- last true battleship engagement.
Battle of Samar Island -- Last Hurray for battleships.
Okinawa Invasion 1945 -- HIJMS Yamato sunk by air power.
Japan and Germany loose last battleships 1945.
Korean war 1950-1953 Battleships operate but only in secondary fire support roll
1960 -- Royal Navy scraps last BB
1968 -- France scrapes last BB
Vietnam war 1968 -- USS New Jersey operates in secondary fire support roll.
600 ship era -- Iowa class battleships operate in secondary gun fire support roll and as platform for land attack vessels.
Iowas retired for last time 1993.

[bengtsson]

Timeline:
The age of the battleship began to end with the introduction of the self propelled torpedo in the 1890s.
The Predreadnought Zenith was Tushima in 1905.
The Dreadnought zenith was the battle of Jutland 1916.
The Decline begins with the Washington Treaty in 1922.
The Decline accelerates as aircraft lift weights increase in the 1930s. Decline not readily apparent.
Decline starts to be ovious. Battle of Taranto 1940. Aircraft attack battleships with aerial torpedos.
Decline becomes clear. Battle of Pearl Harbor 1941. Aircraft attack battleship in protected harbor.
The Battle of the Coral Sea and Battle of Midway 1942. Two major battles where battleships did not make contact.
Guadalcanal battles: battleships still relevent for night gunnery. Day light is dominated by air power.
Battles of Leyte 1944
Battle of Surigao Strait -- last true battleship engagement.
Battle of Samar Island -- Last Hurray for battleships.
Okinawa Invasion 1945 -- HIJMS Yamato sunk by air power.
Japan and Germany loose last battleships 1945.
Korean war 1950-1953 Battleships operate but only in secondary fire support roll
1960 -- Royal Navy scraps last BB
1968 -- France scrapes last BB
Vietnam war 1968 -- USS New Jersey operates in secondary fire support roll.
600 ship era -- Iowa class battleships operate in secondary gun fire support roll and as platform for land attack vessels.
Iowas retired for last time 1993.

I agree. It was a process taking place over time. The loss of Yamato was sort of the icing on the cake. No better example of where the BB stood by 1945. Hundreds of Carrier aircraft versus a huge BB. It was no contest . The BB was obsolete as a Capital Ship by Peral Harbor. But it still had some uses in WWII. But so did minesweepers and DEs. Just becasue they had a use, does not make them a capital ship anylonger. Today the Nuclear Sub and th Super Carrier are the capital Ships. After WWII, the USN Carrier force was the decider in global naval affairs. The BBs were window dressing.

Bob B.

[Filipe Ramires]

As usual, in this discussion, the decline of the battleship goes only in favour of another expensive capital ship...the aircraft carrier. Kind of typical given that still prevails the old school of greatness of ships, regardless if it has heavy guns or planes, and yet no one gives importance to the pesky little cheap underwater demon that since almost its birth condemned any surface ship to obsolescence or to "unnecessary" risk. Royal Oak, Barham, Kongo and some others fell prey to this kind of "less-honoured" weapon. Plenty of other battleships saw their hulls being gutted as well. It kind feels to me that it still prevails the anti-submarine school of the 20's today!!! Waky waky!!!!!

[Gerarddm]

Ultimo Tiger, I think you are decades behind the time when you state " I think people are forgetting the psychological element of Battleships. They embody the heart of a nation. They are floating steel bastions of absolute power." Proof of this is when we tossed in a few 16" shells into Lebanon, and the opposition as so terrified that they blew up the Marines and Reagan bugged out of Beirut. So much for psychological elements embodying the soul of a nation. Bah.

Such a viewpoint held sway in the era of Hood. Not any more.

As for shore bombardment, recall that it was done to support amphibious landings, which are now passe' what with airborne insertions. A classic amphib task force is pretty much a fat juicy target these days.

[Werner]

Actually, Gerard, it's going the other way. That's why they added well decks to all the helo ships, so the LCAC and LSM types can hit the beach after the air assault clears the way.

[Tracy White]

Helo assaults work great if all you're using is infantry and there's no serious AA. You can't move tanks and heavy vehicles ashore via rotary-wing assets however.

In some aspects the modern gator fleet is very similar to what was used as a concept at Normandy, except that we're replaced the gliders and paratroopers with helicopters and thrown LCACs into the mix.

To reiterate, battleships still had/have their uses, but the age of battleships as the primary capital ship of the fleet was arguably demonstrated as over at Pearl Harbor and in the South China Sea three days later with the sinking of King George V and Repulse. These actions demonstrated not only the technological superiority of the aircraft carrier as a platform for force projection, but also that the tactics necessary had been set in place to some degree, and the effect of aircraft on ships operating WITHOUT carrier support.

One could make a case for Taranto as well, but as this was a single-carrier raid I think it's less of an example of the combined fleet tactics that firmly seated the carrier as queen of the modern* naval battlefield.**

* mostly WWII in this reference; I'm ignoring post-war nuc subs in this instance.

** I'm also not slighting nuc attack subs and boomers, just faulting them, if you will, for either having too little offensive power against anything other than ships or way too much. I think the US Navy at this point has far too little ASW assets.

[Ultimo Tiger]

I'm ashamed someone as great as you who runs this site could mix up King George V with Prince of Wales

I think the idea that one ship supplanted the other isn't that clean cut. The Battleship & the Aircraft Carrier are two joints that when they are fixed together become a powerful combination.

I think the Ise experiment was interesting. Also (I'm stretching reality here) in most Sci-Fi films, programs and books etc, Battleships seem to fufill the same rold as Aircraft Carriers. Take Battlestar Galactica as an example. The ship has a heavy weapon battery but can also launch fighters and such to defend itself. Same for the Imperial ships in Warhammer 40,000. Same in Star Wars. granted they are sheer fantasy but the idea of a large warship which can fufill both roles is interesting. I mean any ship you did like that would have to be gigantic but it would be an interesting avenue to explore hypothetically.

[Lesforan]

UT,

Don't be too hard on Tony here for confusing one ship for another of the same class. I did the same thing myself once on the forum, and I had been on the ship I was referring to!

If you consider a map of the world, you will find most countries (including this one) are rich with potential shore bombardment targets within the range of battleship guns. When you consider the cost effectiveness of 16" guns vs. aircraft for delivering ordinance, and exposure of ship crews offshore to crews on manned attack aircraft, and throw weight of ordinance, battleships look good to me at least.

If we shot up Lebanon with New Jersey, and the terrorists retaliated by bombing a Marine barracks, how does that fault the battleship, Gerard? Are you saying that if we had attacked Lebanon with aircraft the terrorists would not have reacted the same way? What is your logic?

[Ultimo Tiger]

UT,

Don't be too hard on Tony here for confusing one ship for another of the same class. I did the same thing myself once on the forum, and I had been on the ship I was referring to!

Twas mere banter my friend. I have a lot of respect for the people on here. It's nice to be on a fourm that consists of normal people compared to some of the Wrestling ones I go on

If you consider a map of the world, you will find most countries (including this one) are rich with potential shore bombardment targets within the range of battleship guns. When you consider the cost effectiveness of 16" guns vs. aircraft for delivering ordinance, and exposure of ship crews offshore to crews on manned attack aircraft, and throw weight of ordinance, battleships look good to me at least.

That article I posted about CVL's with the madman who wrote it, in another article he suggested that one Iowa could:

A battleship's guns can, in one half hour, accurately lay down tonnage of high explosives equal to that delivered by 15 x B-2 sorties. Comparing bombardment rates, within range of its guns, the battleship can in one hour lay down 56 times the tons delivered from a carrier.

Is there any validity to that statement?

[Tracy White]

Gerard was pointing out that the deterrence value of the battleship was overstated.

Seems there's plenty of confusion going around if you're calling me Tony, Tiger

But yes, my goof. British ships have never been my specialty. By the way, I don't run the site, I'm just a forum moderator who talks too much sometimes.

[Ultimo Tiger]

I didn't call you Tony did I?

I must be getting the memory of Goldfish is my ripe old age of 18.

[Werner]

One of the arguments in the 1980s for reactivating the Iowas was that over 80% of the World's military targets were within naval unfire range.

[Ultimo Tiger]

I thought Kirov was one of the main reasons as well?

[Werner]

Well, not just one argument was mooted. For example, the rehabilitation of the three older units was still less expensive than buying another Perry.

[Lesforan]

Tracy,

I called you Tony, too. Sorry.

UT,

I don't have all the stats I would need to prove my arguement, but if you consider the weight of a 16" projectile x 9 barrels firing at maximum rate, it seems it could certainly equal 15 B-2 missions in a half hour.

On the other hand, I don't know how to figure the maximum tonnage delivered by a carrier (how many strike aircraft carrying how many tons?), nor do I know if any battleship could maintain its maximum rate of fire for an hour. To
equal 56x the delivery tonnage of a carrier in an hour, the battleship would have to almost equal the tonnage of a carrier strike each minute.

In fact, the two statements seem to contradict each other. If you consider the first claim, 15x B-2 in a half hour, that equals one B-2 mission every two minutes. Sounds more likely than an entire carrier strike's tonnage per minute.

[Seasick]

Starting with the Korean war the battleships would better be catagorized as Large Gunboats. If the ship's primary mission is shore bombardment its not a battleship.

[Lesforan]

Seasick,

Call it what you like. I doubt if any battleship sailors would call it anything else.

[chuck]

Age of Battleships will end when the last of the Iowas is retired from reserve and made permanently unavailable for reactivation. Until then some faint pulse still animate the age of battleships.

And no, the Pytor Veliky is not a battleship.